Dr John Mohan Razu
Undoubtedly Israel is a settlers’ colonial project in Palestine. For the last 22-months it has been relentlessly engaged in destructive modes by decimating almost all that it wants. A rogue state will act like a rogue elephant. The rage and ferocity can be seen in the velocity it applies; its gravity only be measured by the destruction that has been brought about. Israel behaves like a rogue elephant, destroying everything involved in shadow boxing. In toto we can only measure the volume of destruction based on the modes that the Zionist state employs.
The visuals and write-ups of what’s happening in Gaza Strip is so mind-blowing and barbaric. All day and all night engaged in bombarding and killing the people by keeping the entire population of the Palestinians under fright. Along with these the starvation crisis is deepening which is worsening. When I say the situation look very grim and worse implies almost 80 percent of the Palestinians are malnourished as it breeds aliments, diseases, and disabilities. When a sizable population is malnourished and impoverished, then people become vulnerable to all kinds of problems that affects their body and mind.
Starvation is much worse as it not just days but weeks and months. There are many things happening in Gaza Strip perpetuated by the state of Israel is bad and worse, but malnutrition is apparently harrowing. Children, women, doctors, staff, paramedical workers serving, men, the injured and disabled in Gaza Strip are getting killed. Children die due to lack of nutrition and non-availability of basic health care medicines. The scale of deprivation is so huge, nothing will match it. The landscape posits sheer destruction and rubbles across the stretch.
Zionists have a systematic way of going after the Palestinians with two-fold strategies: 1) keep them under starvation, and 2) by depriving water, so that they be thirsty. Human bodies cannot manage when these two things come into force. The Israelis have closed all the points of entry for the trucks to carry food, medicine, and water. Blowing up the water supplies, cutting and disconnecting all the gas pipes, and others, and closing all the points that allows essential and survival needs in Palestine with intention are clear indication and evidence of genocide with an intent of liquidating the entire population.
The following reflections amplify the things happening in Gaza Strip:
Did you hear me?
A reflection from Gaza
By Dr Ezzideen from Gaza*
I swear to you. Before God. Before this wretched century. Before whatever last flicker of humanity may still remain in me, what I saw today was not life.
It was the collapse of everything that ever claimed to be sacred.
Once, Fridays in Gaza were holy.
Not because of tradition, but because they were tender.
A father would come home with fish, or perhaps a piece of chicken, and for one hour, we would eat like people.
We were poor, but not degraded.
We would smile across the table, thank God for a small plate of meat, and feel alive. We felt worthy of breath.
Even the poorest among us knew this dignity.
They saved all week. They endured hunger not out of habit, but for hope.
For that one day.
That one meal.
That illusion of a normal life.
But now?
Today is Friday.
And I walked through the streets of Gaza, not to celebrate, not even to feed, but to hunt for rice.
Rotten rice.
Gray grains that stick to your fingers and taste like nothing.
Anything. Anything at all to fool the stomach into silence.
My brother searched one market. I searched another.
We returned with crumbs.
We paid with the last coins we had.
They ask for gold in exchange for ash.
And we pay it, because the children must eat, and because we no longer dare to say what is fair.
But I have not come to speak about rice.
I have come to confess what I saw.
A truck passed by.
It was empty.
Its floor was covered in a thin layer of flour dust.
Just dust.
Not bags. Not bread. Only the trace of something that might once have saved a child.
And then I saw them.
Not rebels. Not criminals.
Children.
They ran, ran like hunted things, toward that truck. They climbed it with hands that have never held toys.
They fell to their knees as if before an altar.
And they began to scrape.
One had a broken lid.
Another, a piece of cardboard.
But the rest, the rest used their hands.
Their tongues.
They licked it.
Do you hear me?
They licked flour dust from rusted steel. From dirt. From the back of a truck that had already driven away.
One boy was laughing.
Not because he was happy, but because the body goes mad when it is starving.
Another was crying, quietly, like someone who no longer believes anyone is listening.
And I stood there.
With all my shame.
With my hands in my pockets, like a man waiting for a bus.
Like I wasn't watching the end of the world.
I wanted to scream.
But what scream can reach Heaven, when Heaven itself is deaf?
What words can I offer?
What words can explain the sound of a child's tongue scraping against rust for a taste of flour?
There are no metaphors left.
There is no beauty in this.
Only sin.
Only crime.
And we are all guilty.
You. Me.
The ones who sent the truck.
The ones who sent the planes.
And God?
If You are watching, then cry with us.
And if You are silent, then we are alone in this hell.
This is the twenty-first century.
But history has not moved forward.
It has swallowed its own children and called it progress.
I don't want to write this.
I want to unsee it.
I want to forget the boy who licked the floor.
But I can't.
Because I saw him.
Because he is real.
Because he is more real than all the words l' have written.
And because if I forget him, then I am no longer human.
*Doctor Ezzideen, sometimes a writer, other times a Doctor. Revealing hidden stories, a voice for the unheard. Witness to humanity's darkest depths.
